Ungracious Losers

by Andrea Peyser

June 4, 2008 -- "A LADY knows when it's time to leave. But Hillary Rodham Clinton is a different kind of dame.

Appropriately, she held what should have been her final campaign appearance in a stifling, windowless bunker - a gymnasium, actually - two floors below street level at Baruch College.

After a while, I hallucinated that cyanide capsules were falling from the ceiling.

Instead, she gave us Hillarus Interruptus.

"I will not be making any decisions tonight," sayeth Hillary. That said it all.

After all, it's all about Hillary. Hillary! It always was.

She took the stage in a frisky, royal-blue, silk pantsuit. Her hair was freshly trimmed. She knew she held the country, and her party, by the short hairs. The way she always liked it!

Just 300 supporters, and an equal number of reporters, showed. The cash bar did a brisk business, as the shindig began to resemble a wake.

I saw two women hug. Then came the tears.

When Hillary finally rose beside ball-and-chain Bill and a beaming Chelsea, she started playing with our heads, like a kitten with string.

"I want to begin by congratulating Sen. Obama and his supporters," she began. Congratulate?

"Whatever!" I heard a woman cry. "Boo!" said another. "Shhhhhh!" said a third.

For weeks, the door has been poised to smack Hillary on the backside, ending White House dreams that have bordered on the pathological.

But yesterday, Hillary turned semantically unglued, hanging by her frayed fingernails to her campaign, while hinting that she wants to be vice president.

In a turn of phrase reminiscent of her husband's idiotic sexual denial in a deposition about Monica Lewinsky ("It depends on what the definition of 'is' is"), Hillary's camp argued all day over the definition of the "c" word - "concede," that is.

The Associated Press was reporting throughout the day that Hillary "will concede that Barack Obama has the delegates to secure the Democratic nomination."

Last night, however, she never uttered the word, never recognized that Obama is, in fact, the party's nominee.

I used to feel sorry for Hillary. Now I don't.

"It has been an honor to contest these primaries" with Obama, she teased. And still, she won't leave.

The presidency was going to be Hillary's consolation prize for putting up with her reckless, hound-dog husband. But that was not good enough a reason to make someone a contender for the highest office in the land.

The fat lady is singing, but Hillary can't hear."

The amazing thing about all of this is the fact that anyone would be surprised that a Clinton would hang on to power just for power's sake. When faced with impeachment, Blowjob Billy ran running to every Black Caucus group on the planet to beg them to stand up for him. They did, en masse, and first chance he got he spat upon their candidate for the Presidency.

Just for a chance to rent the Lincoln Bedroom out again.